At WetCanvas, there was a discussion/educational thread about how to paint snow which gave me the idea to paint my Flowing Ice. The view is from a privat castle outside Stockholm, Tyresö slott. When I shot the reference, there were unusual high water-levels, which then froze to ice. The whole swirly area of ice is a flooded meadow. Normally, the water would be behind the reeds and the boathouse, to the right. The dark "thingy" behind and to the left of the boathouse is a small jetty.

I've not painted many snow-scapes, as I really do not like the cold... Sure, snow is pretty, but it is also cold!

As I'm learning the use of Notan, I made some of these miniature studies:


I chose to use the bottom one for my painting, but without the dark upper right corner. Not that I know what I do, but it seemed to me that extending the background trees beyond the picture would create a more interesting shape and lessen the horizontals as the sky would be broken up and not be one mass. I also considerably lightened the landmass behind the boathouse, keeping all the really dark darks in, around, and connected to the boathouse. In the last notan is it also clear that I changed the patch of snow in the lower left corner so it would point to, and visually connect to, the bg snow, and not be a line that chopped off the corner.

Then I chose a terracotta coloured sheet of Colourfix, made the skeleton drawing, and painted in the first colour-statements. These set the light of the painting, and are flat pure masses of colour:

You can see clearly what the picture represents at this stage, but not if it is land or water. It is also very clear it is a sunny day, with very long shadows, so it is either early morning, late afternoon, or midday sun up by the 60th latitude in January/February.

Next, I made the colours more 'right', by painting on top of the first statements. I like to finish the sky pretty quickly, as it helps me judge the other colours, and also because the trees will go on top of they sky, as they are in the background and I want them hazier, more muted, not so harshly silhouetted. There are several layers of colour involved in making the still flat areas 'right':

Now it is crystal clear it is a winter scene. I developed the boathouse a bit further (beyond flat statements), as that unavoidably will be the area of interest, human artifacts in a landscape always are. In fact, the painting could be finished at this stage, as all the relevant information is there. I will not develop every area, some will remain as they are here. I've rushed ahead a bit more, and started to indicate depth of space in the flat planes.

Next, I developed more space, put in the really dark darks as I felt they were needed, and painted most of the swirls in the ice.

I pushed the house a bit lighter, to make the door part of the dark detials. I've started to work on details and edges.

And in the finished painting, I've added the trees in the bg, and the footprints of an animal, probably a dog, who has run happily over the ice and snow (so the snow wouldn't be a too boring area). I've added the sleeping bush, and reeds, all which are details. And I've paid close attention to edges. See for example how the roof-lines of the boathouse do not run unchecked off the page, they are blurred, which also serves to create the illusion of three-dimensionality:

Why is this picture cooler than the others? Because the others are photographed in incandescent light, and the finish in overcast daylight which brings out the colours much better than the light-bulbs.

A detail of the snow in lower right corner, with footprints. As you can see, the snow isn't as yellow as it seems -- it is the glow of the underpainting that peakes through the rather grayed upper layers:


And another detail from the distance:


And from where the ice ends and meet the snow in shadow:

Luxurious blues, eh? That is the strength of the Unison pastels!